Quotes from Readings

For my "Foundations of Teaching & Learning" subject I had to read several books. This is a list of interesting quotes I found in each...

Gardner, Howard. Multiple Intelligences. New York: Basic Books, 1993. (250 pages)

Quotes

Seven intelligences listed: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, inter-personal, and intra-personal. [P.8-9]

“The purpose of school should be to develop intelligences and to help people reach vocational and avocational goals that are appropriate to their particular spectrum of intelligences.” [P.9]
New roles for educators: “assessment specialist”, “student-curriculum broker” [P.10] and “school-community broker” [P.11]

“Intelligence is biopsychological potential” while “domain is the discipline or craft that is practiced in society” and a “field is the set of institutions and judges that determine which products within a domain are of merit.” [P.37]

Intelligences are more complex than learning styles. MI begins with a human organism that responds to different kinds of contexts in different ways. Learning styles probably reflect how a person responds to particular contexts. [P.44-45]

Success in educational reform depends on four factors: assessment, curriculum, teacher education and professional development, and community participation. [P.78-79]

The most appropriate model for talking about school change is building a new community. [P.84]

There is a contrast between the formal testing model of schooling and the apprenticeship model of education, involving ongoing assessment. [P.162]

Infants do not use symbols (words, letters, numbers, charts, etc.), but in the second year of life the use of symbols emerges (with language). There is a second-level of symbol use – the invented symbol system, such as writing or numbers. Developing the second-level use of symbol is largely restricted to the educational system. [P.168]

Museums, in contrast to schools, have successfully provided a multiple media interface for the learning of many different phenomenons that connect with real world situations. [P.200]

Five entry points for approaching a topic or concept: narrative, logical-quantitative, foundational, esthetic, and experiential entry points. [P203-4]

The pluralization of intelligence suggests that there may be anywhere from seven to several hundred dimensions of mind… Once one adds to this the next two realizations – that each mind has its own peculiar social-cultural context and that each mind partakes of various human and non-human extensions – it is evident that every human being has a sharply distinctive mind. [P.228]

Gregory, John Milton. The Seven Laws of Teaching. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1956.

Quotes

Two notions of education are 1) the development of capacities; and 2) the acquisition of experience. [P.ix]

The art of education is the 1) are of training; and 2) the art of teaching. [P.x]

The seven laws of teaching are [p.5-6]:
1) A teacher must be one who KNOWS the lesson or truth or art to be taught.
2) The learner is one who ATTENDS with interest to the lesson.
3) The language used as a MEDIUM between teacher and learner must be COMMON to both.
4) The lesson to be mastered must be explicable in the terms of truth already known by the learner – the UNKNOWN must be explained in terms of the KNOWN.
5) Teaching is AROUSING and USING the pupil’s mind to grasp the desired thought or to master the desired art.
6) Learning is THINKING into one’s own UNDERSTANDING a new idea or truth or working in HABIT a new art or skill.
7) The test or proof of teaching done – the finishing and fastening process –must be a REVIEWING, RETHINKING, REKNOWING, REPRODUCING and APPLYING of the material that has been taught, the knowledge and ideals and arts that have been communicated.

True teaching, then, is not what gives knowledge, but that which stimulates students to gain it. [P.77]

The infant knows little, and his interest is brief and slight; the man knows many things, and his interests are deeper, wider and more persistent. [P.82]

Hendricks, Howard. Teaching to Change Lives. Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 1987. (180 pages)

Quotes

The Law of the Teacher: “If you stop growing today, you stop teaching tomorrow” [p.27]

How about your diet? If I scheduled a seminar at your church and then walked in drunk, you’d dismiss me immediately. But if I walked in fifty pounds overweight, you’d feed me more, right? Sure – after all, you can’t have a Christian gathering without food. Did you ever wonder how the early church made it without coffee and donuts? I’ll tell you: They had something better to provide togetherness – persecution. That’ll weld you together in a hurry.” [p.45]

I don’t mean to be cruel, but I’m compelled to be honest: If all those involved in Christian teaching had to become salesmen and saleswomen to make a living, most of them would starve to death. We’re teaching the most exciting truth in the world – eternal truth – and we’re doing it like we’re selling cold mashed potatoes. [p.102]

“We have too many parents and teachers who think their primary goal with a child is to rear a good boy or a good girl. But their job is to rear a good man or a good woman – that is, a self-starter who is internally loaded. We have too many people at age forty-six who are still good boys and girls.” [P.142-3]

LeFever, Marlene. Learning Styles. Colorado Springs: David C. Cook Publishing, 1995.

“When teachers understand students’ learning styles and adjust their teaching to those styles, students will learn. Teaching to style enables teachers to begin reaching everyone God gave them to teach.” [P.11]

“An individual lesson or an entire curriculum can be built around the four learning types of learners. The lesson starts with Imaginative and moves to Analytic, then on to Common Sense, finally finishing with Dynamic… the questions each learning style group is best at answering:
Imaginative: 1. Why do I need to know this? (meaning)
Analytic: 2. What do I need to know (content)
Common Sense: 3: How does this work? (experiment)
Dynamic: 4. What can this become? (creative application)” [P.25]

“The Learning Style Cycle presented in this book gives valuable clues, a creative rationale, for structuring Christian education classes into a four-step sequence that utilizes the learning strengths of all students. The more we know the more difficult – but effective – our teaching can become.” [P.162]

“The learning style approach is to ask people to do jobs in programs… that fit their preferred learning styles” [P.169]

“Pastors can increase the number of people who feel comfortable in their churches when they pay attention to learning styles and make certain that there is a place in each service where people who prefer any one of the four styles will feel comfortable.” [P.178]

Wilkinson, Bruce H. The Seven Laws of the Learner. Sisters: Multnomah Press, 1992.

“Former US Secretary of Education Shirley M. Hufstedler was right on when she said, ‘The secret to being a successful teacher is… to accept in a very personal way the responsibility for each student’s success or failure. Those teachers who do take personal responsibility for their students’ successes and failures… produce higher achieving students.’” [P.32]

“Reject the false notion that those who get content nicely packaged are well-fed sheep. God forbid that we think the essence of feeding the sheep is a wonderfully outlined sermon. Rise up against such thinking. It is unworthy of you. You have been called to ‘teach them to observe all that I have commanded you.’ Teach them to obey. Your goal is not a wonderful lesson but a transforming lesson.” [P.153]

“Your teaching has one primary target: lifechange! You have to know what parts of your students’ lives need changing and then devise appropriate applications to meet those needs. You must structure all parts of your content to hit that lifechange target.” [P.158]

Seminary Experience

G'day,

A few months before I left for seminary I splurged and bought a copy of logos software. It's a pretty full-on Bible study software package that you can customise to suit your needs. It was too resource demanding to fit on my old laptop, but it runs like a dream on my new one. And I tell you, it has saved my bacon during this Hebrew intensive class.

Last week I had to write a word study on the Hebrew word: "אמן" - which is usually translated "believe". I was to look up in a concordance all the occurrences of the word, then in a lexicon all the various meanings of the word and then a theological dictionary what it all means. Well, Logos did most of that research for me in seconds. I still had to distill all the information into a paper, but Logos saved me hours of photocopying and flicking through dusty tomes.

I was so pleased that I decided to make sure the Logos registration website had my current details. I started exploring and found out there are over 10,000 books available to download and integrate into my Logos library. There are some really useful ones too... like serious commentaries, theology text books and more advanced Greek and Hebrew resources. Logos provides a discount to seminary students.

I also found out that Logos offers a $1,000 scholarship to seminary students, so I applied for that. You can find the link to the seminary scholarship at: www.seminaryscholarship.com.

They also offered me $200 if I blogged about my seminary experience and provided a link to the scholarship website above. I decided to take up their offer because there is a great set of commentaries on the NT Greek that I'd like to get.

Geoff